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 and in 1757–9, also 21 vols. An ‘Abridgment’ was issued in 1747, and a ‘Summary’ in 1751. Tindal's ‘work is partly original and partly a compilation, but it deserves the praise of having been written without party spirit, and of being a temperate and candid narrative of carefully ascertained facts, although destitute of those higher merits which attest original historic power’ ( and, Introduction to English History, p. 375). According to Burton, it ‘has perhaps been more amply founded on by later historians, as an authority, than any other book referring to the period it covers’ (Reign of Queen Anne, ii. 324). Archdeacon Coxe, however, asserts that the ‘Continuation’ was principally written by Thomas Birch [q. v.], with the assistance of ‘persons of political eminence.’ Tindal himself acknowledges valuable assistance rendered him by Philip Morant [q. v.] In August 1757 William Duncombe [q. v.] published anonymously an attack on Tindal's style, entitled ‘Remarks on Mr. Tindal's Translation’ (, Lit. Anecd. viii. 267).

While still vicar of Waltham, Tindal projected a ‘History of Essex’ in three volumes, but the scheme did not meet with much support, and two numbers only appeared (1732? 4to). The first included the history of Felsted and Pantfield, and the second the history of Raine, Stebbing, and part of Bocking. They were based upon the manuscripts of William Holman [q. v.], which had been entrusted to Tindal on Holman's death in 1730. In 1731 Tindal was appointed master of the royal free school at Chelmsford, and in 1732 chaplain in ordinary at Chatham. In 1733, his uncle, Matthew Tindal, died, and Nicholas believed himself to have been left his sole heir. A will, however, generally thought to have been forged, was produced by Eustace Budgell, which left practically all his effects to Budgell [see ]. Tindal published in the same year ‘A Copy of the Will of Matthew Tindal, with an Account of what pass'd concerning the same between Mrs. Lucy Price, Eustace Budgell, Esq., and Mr. Nicolas Tindal,’ London, 8vo; but he failed to obtain restitution from Budgell (cf., Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, iii. 270). In 1738 Tindal was appointed chaplain to Greenwich Hospital, and in 1740 was presented to the rectories of Calbourne, Isle of Wight, and Alverstoke, Hampshire. In 1764 he published a ‘Guide to Classical Learning, or Polymetis Abridged’ [see ]; this abridgment proved a very popular handbook, and subsequent editions appeared in 1765, 1777, 1786, and 1802, all in duodecimo. Tindal also translated from the French, the text of De Beausobre and Lenfant's ‘Commentary on St. Matthew's Gospel,’ published by Morant in 1725, and Calmet's ‘Antiquities Sacred and Prophane,’ published in monthly parts in 1724.

Tindal died at Greenwich Hospital, on Monday, 27 June 1774, in his eighty-seventh year, and was buried in the second burial-ground of the hospital, known as Goddard's Garden (, Kent, ed. 1886, i. 76; Gent. Mag. 1774, p. 333). A portrait of Tindal, painted by Knapton and engraved by Picart, formed the frontispiece of the second volume of the second edition of Rapin. It was retouched by Vertue for his ‘Heads of the Kings of England’ (1736), and was reproduced in the ‘Essex Review’ (ii. 168).

Tindal married, first, Anne, daughter of John Keate of Hagborn, Berkshire; by her he had three sons, of whom George, a captain in the royal navy, was grandfather of Sir Nicholas Conyngham Tindal [q. v.] Another son, James, was father of William Tindal [q. v.] Nicholas Tindal married, secondly, on 11 Aug. 1753, at the chapel of Greenwich Hospital, ‘Elizabeth, daughter of I. Gugelman, Captain of Invalids,’ by whom he had no issue (Tindal's own pedigree of the Tindal family in Lit. Anecd. ix. 302–3).

[Authorities cited; Essex Review, ii. 168–79; Works in Brit. Mus. Library; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Hasted's Kent; Chalmers's Biogr. Dict.; Cazenove's Rapin-Thoyras, 1866; Lowndes's Bibl. Manual, ed. Bohn.]  TINDAL, NICHOLAS CONYNGHAM (1776–1846), chief justice of the common pleas, born at Coval Hall, near Chelmsford, on 12 Dec. 1776, was son of Robert Tindal, a solicitor of Chelmsford, by his wife Sarah, only daughter of John Pocock of Greenwich. Matthew Tindal [q. v.], the deist, was of his family, and his great-grandfather was Nicholas Tindal [q. v.], the historical writer. Nicholas Conyngham was sent to the Chelmsford grammar school, of which Thomas Naylor was then master, and at nineteen went to Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1799 he graduated B.A. as eighth wrangler, winning the chancellor's gold medal. He was elected fellow of his college in 1801, and next year he graduated M.A. and entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn. In 1834 he received the honorary D.C.L. degree at Oxford.

On 20 June 1809 Tindal was called to the bar, having previously read with Sir John Richardson (1771–1841) [q. v.], and practised as a special pleader. He joined the northern circuit, and, on the strength of his wide and accurate learning (for he never was a good